Book Day 26 - On Improbable situations
A thriller for the Negotiations Section!
So people have different takes on how to handle improbable situations. Some people think about them quite a lot. Some people think about them very little.
Say you are getting married. Some people really want to know they will not get divorced. Some people are a bit more okay with getting divorced, but want to cement the “now” feelings that they have about getting married. They want to know that their partner wants to marry them, now, than caring too much about their partner divorcing them later, potentially. It having happened and ending is better than it never happening at all, or the opportunity cost of “waiting” for the “perfect marriage” to appear.
but so people have very different relationships to uncertainty.
Some people really like knowing what is certain, and that it will not change and would rather be alone than be in a situation where they end up being betrayed.
Some people are way more okay being betrayed in some ways, if it means they get to have the experience at all.
You can see this in the variation of philosophical traditions. For example the existentialists emphasizing experience and freedom ("better to have lived and lost than never lived at all") vs. stoics or rationalists emphasizing stability and control.
There is a high variance around tolerance for ambiguity or risk sensitivity : some people are wired to seek closure and certainty, others to explore and improvise. The enneagram types are variable on these dimensions as well; Six’s preoccupation with safety vs. Seven’s hunger for novelty.
You see this also in other areas:
Parenthood: “Some people won’t have kids until they feel fully ready; others accept that readiness is ephemeral.”
Friendship: “Some test the durability of connection by seeing if it can handle distance or change; others need the container clearly defined.”
On a more micro level, some people when they ask about something very unlikely, assume that their partner would say “yes” because it is so unlikely and so is pretty risk-free. “Hey if I go to this city, can I text this friend to meet up? Maybe we will bang, idk.” Because of how casual it is, the person might assume getting that yes is easy.
However not everybody is like this. Some people might wonder, “why are you asking me about banging when you do not even know this person, when you do not even know if she wants to bang you.”
The idea here is if you have permission to bang, you have permission to flirt in a way which can lead to the banging, even if you do not know if you want to bang or not.
But one person can see asking permission for something improbable as low-stakes curiosity, while another sees it as signaling deeper motivation.
Some people use probabilistic thinking (“it’s unlikely, so safe to mention”) while others use symbolic thinking (“mentioning implies hardcore desire”).
Stuff like this can be nonstarters in negotiations, especially if it’s layers inside of other dynamics like an onion.
One person asks about a casual acquaintance, and the partner assumes that they have to say yes, and then feel pressured. Because they say yes, they assume they can do another thing.
Often people are bad at gauging how hard something is for another person. The better you are at this skill, the better your life.